


Disengage

by SilverRollu



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Description of Injuries, Gen, battle simulation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 19:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10520796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverRollu/pseuds/SilverRollu
Summary: Keith has a bit of an encounter with a training robot.or;'You’re panicking, Keith,’he thinks to himself, in an attempt to placate his growing nerves.‘Don’t panic. You have to focus.'





	

**Author's Note:**

> i watched season 1 episode 9: crystal venom and was gravely disappointed by keith's lack of grievous injury
> 
> this whole thing is self-indulgent trash, i'm sorry

Keith pushes himself harder than need be. If he’s in a race, he has to push his legs further. If he’s in battle, he needs to be faster, stronger. If he’s training, he has to keep going, over and over, until he’s at his absolute limit. Sometimes that means he’ll collapse, but it also means he’s given it his all, that he’ll be all the better for it later.

He’s at that point now, where he’s exhausted his second wind and his arms feel like jelly when they drop to his side, so he thinks he should end things here. He can barely catch his breath, his chest and shoulders heaving. So when the training bot apart from him rears up for another attack, he, almost reluctantly but only almost, calls to the computer to end the session. Only instead of the familiar whir as the bot shuts down and goes to wherever they go when not in use, the robot keeps moving, unobstructed. Now that doesn’t usually happen, right?

“End training sequence,” he says, vaguely looking up as if he could somehow look the computer in the eye. The bot brandishes its sword and takes a stance. “End training sequence!” he repeats, voice taking that edge of urgency as the bot _still_ moves, this time running straight for him.

Keith yells one more time, in vain, for the computer to end the sequence _now_ but it is unheard and he is out of time. He just manages to parry the bot’s swing, but with his short reaction time and the sheer force of the robot’s attack his bayard gets thrown from his hand, skidding across the floor a good fifteen or so feet away.

If he had a spare moment, he’d be cursing his decision to select a training bot a few levels higher than he probably should have. But he doesn’t have that moment, as the second after losing his weapon the bot slams its foot into his side, sending him sprawling across the room. It takes a few second, a cough or two, before he pulls himself back to his feet.

Keith doesn’t know how computers work; he doesn’t know _why_ the machine is still moving, watching him carefully and no doubt preparing its next attack, when it should by all means be deactivated and _gone_ by now. He can feel the skin on the back of his neck crawling, and as he clenches his jaw, flexes his fingers, he’s only sure of two things. There’s something wrong here. There’s something wrong and he needs to get out _now_.

He spots his bayard a few feet away, and is suddenly grateful to have been kicked in its direction. He breaks into a sprint, ducking down under the bot’s swing, managing to just narrowly avoid being hit and snatches up his bayard on the way to the door. Home free!

Except it doesn’t open.

He pushes on the release, bangs on it, yells at it to “come on you stupid—” but it doesn’t budge. So he turns around to assess where the training bot is now and gets another kick to his side, this one _harder_ than the one before, and much, much more unexpected. When he flies this time his shoulder collides with the wall, and he lets out a pained groan as the momentum throws him to the side. He takes a shallow breath, wrapping his arms around his sides. It _hurts._

This moment of respite lasts but a moment. The bot is on him again, and Keith, arms still wrapped around his undoubtedly bruised ribs, barely manages to roll away before the sword comes down, hitting the spot he’d just been. He’s dropped his bayard again, so as a last ditch effort he throws out his leg, catching the bot’s foot and pulling it down. It loses its footing and Keith takes the opportunity to stumble to his feet, running for his weapon. He grabs it, arms himself just in time for the machine to right itself and come at him again.

It’s a steady barrage of attacks, now. Keith can feel the adrenaline pumping through his system, but he knows he doesn’t have long. He was already feeling the exhaustion hitting him earlier, when he first started the new sequence, so he knows that once that adrenaline runs out he’s got nothing. He wants to go all out, but his shoulder is sore from where it hit the wall, and while it’s not impossible to hold his sword like this it tingles a bit, and it becomes an increasingly more difficult feat to keep his arm above waist level. Soon he’s strictly on the defensive, being pushed back by the bot’s endless attacks.

And then he makes a slip. The bot comes for him and Keith blocks high instead of low. The sword knicks him in the side, and the first thing Keith feels is not the pain or even the dampness of his blood, suddenly oozing out of him. It’s the coldness of the bot’s sword, cut so cleanly through his shirt and across his flesh. So clean that maybe later he could liken the experience to cooking; how easily knives cut through skin and meat, slicing without resistance.

Keith yells, and the break in his concentration leads him open to another attack. He barely dodges, and the maneuver trips him and lands him flat on his back, one hand rising up to touch his side. It’s not as deep as it could be but he can feel the warm blood running without end.

“S-stop!” Keith yells, half at the robot and half at the unseen computer, desperately hoping someone hears it. He’s shuffling away as far as he can go while clutching his wound, starting up at the bot’s lone red eye and feeling fear hit him. He’s shaking, like the blood in his veins is running cold. It seems ridiculous, that it’s just a simple robot coming at him and not a trained enemy soldier, a living person with the intention at taking his life. _He’s_ the one who’s supposed to be controlling this situation, calling the shots, telling _it_ what to do. It’s just a damn _training bot_ but Keith can feel his heart beating painfully in his chest, his breathing spiking with the panic oozing down his spine.

It goes for him again, and like before Keith rolls to avoid it. But, in some sick twist of fate the bot took into account for the earlier encounter and feints with its sword, the real attack being another swift kick to the side. The injured, bleeding side. The little pained yelp Keith lets out is small, but it takes all the wind from his lungs anyway.

Keith rolls to an abrupt stop on his stomach. With a groan he flexes his fingers and attempts to lift himself. To crawl away, keep moving, something. For his valiant effort he gets a boot to the back of his head and a face full of smooth, dusty floor. The bot’s foot is strangely smooth as it grinds into his skull, and the pressure is intense enough that every attempt to lift his head gets squashed appropriately.

“Fuck…!” Keith’s hands fly up to the foot, trying to shove it off, but his position doesn’t give him any real leverage. In fact, the bot swats his hand away with the side of its blade, and Keith flinches away when he feels the new row of cuts on his knuckles. If the bot had been anymore aggressive in that moment, if he was any less lucky, he’d have lost a finger. Or two. He takes a few labored breaths, because he can’t breathe deep while crushed against the floor and, shit, his heart will not stop and he’s feeling dizzy now.

 _‘You’re panicking, Keith,’_ he thinks to himself, in an attempt to placate his growing nerves. _‘Don’t panic. You have to focus. What’s that thing Shiro likes to say? Patience yields—’_

The blade sinks into his right shoulder and, funny enough, he doesn’t feel it until it hits bone and only _then_ does he scream.

He screams the little bit of air left in his lungs, and off the inhale he whimpers because _fuck_ that hurts. He vaguely wishes he’d gotten into the habit of training in his armor more, because while it’d be heavy and sweaty and gross it wouldn’t feel like _this_. The bot removes the sword slowly and Keith can faintly hear the squelch of his blood as it slides out. It comes out only to go back in, a few inches below that, and Keith didn’t know he could scream so loud before today.

This time it hurts so immediately and intensely. Keith’s entire body spasms, his legs in particular twitching as if willing his body to move forward, away from the threat. His arms on the other hand begin to feel so numb he can’t feel his tightly clenched hands, fingers digging deep into his palms. It’s not enough to distract him from the pain but, honestly, almost nothing could.

By the third time he’s only marginally prepared. This one in his side, and from the numbing pain he figures this one must have hit some internal organ. He tastes blood, faint. Suddenly everything is spinning around him. He opens his mouth to maybe scream again and is surprised by the strangled sound that comes out instead, small and broken. He’s even more surprised by the dampness on his cheeks, the burning under his closed eyelids. He doesn’t have the energy to fight it.

He doesn't feel the next one, or the one after. Vaguely, he can hear sounds other than his heartbeat — so quick before that’s now slowing, slower — and manages to open his eyes long enough to see something moving. The next thing he sees is a face, maybe.

And then nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> i like to imagine someone saved him or something but, yknow. /shrugs


End file.
